A Changed Man (39 page)

He hugs his long-lost cousin. Not some Hollywood-Jew air kiss but a white man’s bear hug. All right, maybe a little hard. Give the man something he can feel. Meanwhile Raymond grabs Vincent’s right hand and gives him the ARM handclasp down between their chests where no one can see it. Vincent’s palm gets wet in the time it takes him to wrestle it back from Raymond.

Chandler twitches his sparkling pinkie, and another Chandler Chair appears. Raymond falls back into the chair, strongly vibing Chandler not to come over with his hand out.

Chandler gets it. Chandler’s good to go. Everything’s clear to Chandler.

But he’s a little stumped. He can’t ask, How did you guys meet, or Tell us about the first time you met, like he did with Maslow and Vincent. And Chandler’s not going to ask Raymond to show off his tattoo. He already sees it. Probably the cameras are being told not to look. The last thing they want the American people to see is a man who believes in something so strongly he’ll have its ancient but currently unfashionable symbol engraved on his tender white skin.

“Vincent, were you aware that your cousin would be here today?” Chandler knows the answer. Silence. More silence. “I take it that you didn’t—”

“It’s a surprise,” Vincent says.

Raymond’s just figured out how to tell, from the monitors, where the camera is pointed. And right now it’s pointed at him, so he gives it a big toothy grin. Let Mr. and Mrs. America
watch
the surprise he’s arranged.

Chandler’s teleprompter has gone blank. Has his staff fled for their lives? Chandler is flying solo.

“So you belong, or you did belong, to the organization Vincent left to join Brotherhood Watch.”

“
Do
belong,” clarifies Raymond. “I’m still a proud member of the American Rights Movement—”

“The Aryan Resistance Movement. A well-known hate group,” the Jewish expert interrupts. “Brotherhood Watch has been monitoring their activities for years. Vincent has been extremely helpful—”

“A patriotic organization,” Raymond corrects. But that’s enough. He hasn’t come here to debate the Jew on the subject of what ARM stands for. As much as Raymond would like to tell the truth about ARM, that approach is a guaranteed loser. He’s got something better planned.

“Holocaust deniers and Nazi sympathizers.” The old man is not going to get off Raymond’s case. But Raymond will not engage. At least not until he’s had a chance to bounce a couple of facts off Chandler.

“Cousin Vincent wasn’t expecting me. I don’t think he would have invited me, either. Because I know something about him that he’d rather no one knew.”

“What’s that?” Chandler can’t help asking. Is this how you treat your guests? Invite them on the show and then invite the family to air their dirty laundry?

The audience has gone silent.

“First of all, the guy lived with me and my wife and kids for years. My wife fed him. I got him a job. He stayed on my living room couch. He was there when my kids ate breakfast. We gave him a leg up, took care of him. And then he splits. He steals my truck. He steals fifteen hundred dollars I’d saved up working two jobs. He even stole the pain medication prescribed for a serious on-the-job injury.”

Just talking about a work-related injury—even if it’s made up—makes Raymond feel like some trailer troll bitching about his aches and pains. But fine, let them see what it looks like. The hardworking, underpaid white man. Plenty
could
have happened to Raymond in fifteen years at the tire shop. Plenty did. And what kind of work injury will
Chandler
ever get? Back strain from kissing guests’ asses? Some bad Botox reaction?

Raymond checks the audience to see how this is going over. What’s the desired reaction? Sympathy. Raymond’s a working man. He’s been hurt. Vincent hurt him. He would like the crowd to turn on Vincent, for lying, and on Maslow, for helping Vincent lie. The crowd should be shocked, disgusted, enraged at the self-righteous bastards who have been playing the audience for fools, and the cherry on top will be their anger at themselves for having been taken, for having applauded a lying thief who steals from his own flesh and blood. They are going to be pissed at themselves for having seen this guy as a hero. And then, if things go Raymond’s way, he can use this golden opportunity to make them start seeing how this is typical of the mind-control media twisting their brains into pretzels.

But somehow it’s not working. The studio audience looks puzzled. Maybe Raymond set it up wrong. Maybe he led them to believe he had something worse on Vincent. Something worse than stealing. That he killed someone, even. That’s what they were expecting. Just boosting a truck and some pills is a letdown. But wait, he did fuck over Raymond. And Lucy. And Raymond’s kids.

They took him in, they trusted him. The guy was flesh and blood. It was tough on Raymond and Lucy and the kids when he stayed forever and then split with his truck! These poor brainwashed white people are so used to being lied to, they can’t recognize the truth when they hear it. They still want to believe that Vincent is the new prince of peace.

“Is this true?” Chandler asks Vincent.

The cameras zoom in on Vincent.

“Is it true?” Chandler repeats.

Vincent stonewalls him. He won’t let Chandler make eye contact. Raymond’s got to hand it to Vincent for being a stand-up guy, for displaying qualities you’d want on your side. Well, toughness isn’t everything. Integrity counts, too.

Finally, Chandler gives up on Vincent and—let’s keep everything rolling here—focuses on the rabbi.

“Did Vincent mention this to you?” he asks. “Did he say he stole from his cousin?”

“How do we know it’s true?” Maslow says. “Because this gentleman says so?”

This gentleman. The Jew is mocking him. The Jew in the hand-tailored suit and the four-hundred-dollar shoes, the Jew whose haircut cost fifty times as much as the lousy copy of
People
that a hardworking white man can’t afford to buy his own wife, the Jew—specifically,
this
Jew—is accusing him of lying.

“It’s true,” says Raymond.

“Let our other guest speak, please,” says Chandler.

“Anyway,” says Meyer Maslow, “what Vincent did before doesn’t matter.”

“Meaning what?” says Chandler.

“What matters is what he’s doing now and how much he’s changed. We assumed he must have done some unfortunate things while he was with ARM, but I never asked—”

Look how the Jew has turned this around in a couple of seconds!

“You never
asked
what he did in this hate group?” says Chandler.

Wait a second. This is not about ARM and what they do. This is not about the Jew being such a saint that he accepts Vincent, warts and all, wiping out the past. This is about what
Vincent
did. Vincent stole from Raymond.

“We went on faith,” says Maslow. “We took him in. We believed him—”

“Help me out, here, Dr. Maslow,” Chandler says. The black man and the Jew are in this together. They have plenty to discuss. And the two white men, Vincent and Raymond, are just bystanders, looking on.

“How does this square with your forgiving but not forgetting?” Chandler—the former lawyer—is interrogating Maslow. Chandler doesn’t forget. Chandler’s making the old man eat it for having corrected him earlier. “Because it seems to me as if you’re trying to forget the past. And to encourage Vincent to forget
his
past—”

Raymond could be furniture here! One of the Chandler chairs. He’s the one who made this happen, and now it’s moved beyond him. He’ll be damned if they edge him out of their gay lovers’ quarrel.

“Plus,” Raymond says so loudly that the cameras find him on instinct, bypassing the director. “Plus this guy, my cousin, didn’t
have
any spiritual conversion. He was taking drugs. Ecstasy. And if he’s stolen all those pills from me, you can bet the dude is still getting high. He’s probably on something now. So don’t tell
me
he’s changed—”

Chandler can’t believe it! Why can’t every show be like this?

“Is that true?” Chandler says. “Vincent, is that true?” He’s tried this line of questioning. Has he forgotten it didn’t work?

“And there’s more,” says Raymond. “There’s lots the dude didn’t tell you. I’ll bet he never mentioned the fact that he had to take twenty hours of anger management class for throwing some little old Jewish lady in her swimming pool. In the deep end. With all her clothes on.”

Chandler waits, Maslow waits, the studio audience waits, the crew waits, the home audience waits. Raymond’s willing to wait. See how Vincent explains that away.

“That isn’t true,” says Vincent. At last. The dead man speaks. “It was the shallow end. And I fished her right out. She didn’t even swallow water. She wasn’t hurt. She’s fine.”

Raymond’s going to have to shut Vincent up. He simply cannot stand the fact that Vincent’s getting away with it. Raymond has got to do whatever it takes.

Just then the Jew says, “I think it’s wonderful that this gentleman has volunteered to come up here and let us see exactly what Vincent left behind. What he decided
against.
The kind of person he turned his back on. And now I’m wondering if we can’t get back to the heart of our show, the real reason why we’re here.”

Meaning the rabbi’s foundation, his book. The Jew is telling Chandler how to run his show. Will Chandler go for it? Chandler lifts his hand. A crew member checks out Raymond. As soon as they go to break, he’ll be escorted out.

“We’ve got a few seconds before break,” Chandler says.

Raymond knows that’s his cue.

Raymond gets up and crosses the stage. It feels good to be moving. It’s the Jew he wants to deal with. The Jew who has insulted him most, out front and in public. Vincent is just a liar and a thief, but the Jew is a danger to the entire white race. The Jew who called him “this gentleman.” The Jew who said
he
was lying.

He takes another step toward the Jew. Raymond hasn’t yet decided what, if anything, he’s going to do to him. So how could he seem threatening? Still, just as he expected, he feels two heavy hands on his shoulders. He turns.

In fact, it’s not what he thought: the beefy security bouncers.

It’s Vincent, pulling him back, dragging him away from the rabbi. Raymond sees the kid from the driveway running down to get a piece of the action, then stopping behind Maslow. Will everybody just calm down here, and step back a minute, and think?

But there’s no thinking, no stepping back. Vincent’s face is twisted with rage. His cheeks are scarlet, his forehead furrowed, spit’s flying out of his mouth.

Vincent hauls off and socks Raymond. Why doesn’t Raymond deck him? It’s as if his arms don’t work, as if some gear has ground to a halt and needs a squirt of lubricant. Vincent keeps hitting Raymond, calling him names. Slamming his fist into Raymond.

Vincent has changed, all right. This is a million times worse than dunking some old lady in the pool. And that’s what helps Raymond get through it, what lets him keep his cool until the pain takes over and eases him out of the situation.

The only thing that comforts Raymond is the proof that he was right all along. Vincent is the violent one. It’s Vincent who’s trashing Raymond.

D
ANNY FEELS AS IF HE’S LOOKING
through the wrong end
of a telescope, watching water bugs skitter around, blowing whistles and trying to control the chaos that’s erupted in the studio.
Slowly, slowly, brothers and sisters, let’s please not rush or panic.
Then poof! The audience is gone, and two burly attendants in green scrub suits are calmly rolling Raymond out on a gurney, as if hauling bloody unconscious skinheads off the
Chandler
set is an everyday occurrence. It occurs to Danny that it might be cool to be an EMT worker someday.

Somewhere a voice asks how Vincent is. Someone else asks
where
Vincent is. Someone’s sent to check on him and then comes back and says, “Mr. Nolan’s not anywhere. We seem to have misplaced our guest.”

Dreamily, Danny looks around. He doesn’t see Vincent, either. Is all this taking a very long time, or no time at all? And where is Mom? You’d think the minute things got ugly, she’d be all over Danny and Max, shielding their bodies with hers. No sooner does Danny wonder why Mom
isn’t
all over them than she is. Mom grabs Danny and Max, and drags them through a door marked “Green Room.”

“You’ll be safe here,” Mom says, shooing them inside.

Danny could just kill her. Does she think they’re babies? And what do they need to be safe
from?
Does Mom think the Aryan Resistance militia is about to descend on
Chandler
and take instant revenge for what happened to Raymond? They’ll take their time. They’ll come after Vincent first. They’ll put him in the hot seat and cut off his toes.

“Sit down, guys,” says Mom.

Danny and Max sink into the nasty couches. Does Julia Roberts chill on these before she goes on
Chandler
? Why do they call it the Green Room, when it’s a gray windowless hole with a bunch of smelly old furniture and a table littered with soda bottles, cracker crumbs, pitted mounds of disgusting dips? And they’re supposed to stay in this holding tank while everything happens outside?

But everything
has
happened. The main event is over. Raymond threatened Meyer, and Vincent interceded. The result wasn’t pretty, but Danny didn’t run away. He ran toward the…he doesn’t know what to call it. He ran toward the…and then he stopped. Vincent said there were two kinds of people, those who run toward the danger and those who run away. Danny’s discovered a third group. People who stop in the middle. And by tomorrow morning, everyone at school will have seen
Chandler.
Danny might as well wear a big letter on his chest, like that girl in
The Scarlet Letter.
In Danny’s case, a giant red
W
for
Wimp.

He can thank his mother for that. Mom’s turned him into a coward. Dad was right about some things. She overprotects and underestimates them. Plus, she likes Max better.

Danny wonders if Vincent noticed him after the fight broke out. Did Vincent see that his instinct, when push came to shove, was to run toward the trouble? Not that Vincent needed Danny’s help to turn into a punching machine. It was way more disturbing than Danny will ever admit to Mom. Danny has seen fights at school, where the trickliest bloody nose makes everyone quit and back off. But Raymond’s face was covered with blood, which only seemed to make Vincent want to hit him more. Raymond’s freakishly scarlet blood sprayed in fat drops as his face melted into rubbery expressions that no face should be able to make. Danny saw what he’s pretty sure were teeth flying out of Raymond’s mouth.

Mom stands in the Green Room doorway, hunched over, wringing her hands. It’s probably how he looked when he ran toward the fight and stalled. And yet, despite how angry she makes him, Danny feels sorry for her. He knows how hard she and Meyer worked to turn Vincent into an advertisement for their foundation. And now their personal Frankenstein has blown its circuits on
Chandler.
What makes being angry at Mom more confusing is that lately Danny’s been aware of how much she does for them. He knows that Armstrong blackmailed her, that her speaking at graduation is all about saving
him.
Danny’s not wild about the idea, but it beats the other options, like repeating junior year.

“There’s stuff to eat and drink in here. In case you’re thirsty or hungry.” Does Mom think they haven’t spotted the sweets and salty snacks a lot faster than she has? Danny regards the table littered with broken cookies, orange cheese puffs, and dirty plastic cups. Is that what Vincent ate before the show? No wonder he went ape.

“We’re fine,” says Max. “Don’t worry.” Max certainly doesn’t look fine. In fact, he looks spooked. But he does seem calm compared to how he was that night at Dad’s. Once again, Max is right. Finding out about the marriage and the Bulgarian baby was worse, for them, than watching Vincent lose it on
Chandler
.

Danny looks at the monitor in the corner of the Green Room. The camera is running, but the only thing on the screen is a young guy in headphones and a
Chandler
T-shirt speed-walking across the wrecked studio.

“Vincent wouldn’t just
leave,
” Mom says. “I’m sure he just stepped out for a minute—”

If Vincent’s gone, at least that means he won’t be speaking at his school. Even when Danny got his head around the prospect of Mom giving a speech, the idea that Vincent was also involved was totally over the top. The few people who hadn’t read about Danny’s bizarro living arrangements in
People
would get to hear about it at graduation. Which would ruin Danny’s senior year…. Danny’s instantly sorry for thinking that. He hopes they find Vincent soon.

Mom says, “Guys, I know this isn’t the right time. But we’ve got to talk, really talk, about what just happened. You guys lead sheltered lives, thank God. It’s not often—never, I hope—that you see horrible violence like that. Violence from someone you know, someone you
thought
you knew. Someone you lived with.
Live
with.”

Sheltered lives. Mom can stick that. Vincent went too far. But Raymond was after Meyer. And Vincent. Raymond parked in their driveway. He meant to hurt someone. The last thing Danny wants now is a big discussion with Mom about whether seeing Vincent beat up Raymond will leave a permanent psychic scar.

“We’ll talk about it,” Danny says. “Whenever. Go do what you have to do.”

“I’ll be back in five minutes,” says Mom.

“Take your time,” says Max. “We’re fine here.”

Finally, Mom leaves. The air feels lighter after she’s gone. Max looks like he could use a drink. Danny paws through the rows of soda bottles.

Max says, very strained and subdued, “So, like, what happened just now?”

“What do you mean, what happened?” Danny says.

“I mean, with Vincent—”

“The shithead threatened Meyer. And Vincent stepped in.” Danny ran toward the trouble, and stopped. But Max isn’t asking about that.

“That’s what it was?” says Max.

“That’s the deal,” says Danny. “Trust me.”

The soda bottles are sticky, half full. No way Danny’s going to touch them.

“Wait a second,” he says. “Here’s a bottle of rum. Yo ho ho. Thank you, Chandler. You know what a Cuba Libre is, Max?”

“No,” says Max.

“Delicious,” says Danny. “Slammin’.” He mixes two rum and Cokes.

Danny and Max get hammered. Danny feels they’ve earned it. The Green Room looks like those cinder-block cells where TV cops interview suspects, but after a second Cuba Libre, the whole scene begins to strike him as sort of
interesting.
It’s strangely relaxing to sit and watch, on the TV monitor, nothing happening in the trashed empty studio.

Danny says, “Have another rum and Coke.”

“These are kind of strong,” says Max.

“Drink it. You need to keep hydrated in a stressful situation. Keep that little brain moistened.”

By now Danny feels kind of swampy. And through the humid, jungly haze he watches something start to happen on the monitor.

Chandler’s back in the studio, giving some kind of speech. In close-up, Chandler’s face is enormous. The audio’s off, and Danny can’t find the dial. Nor does he want to, especially when Chandler wraps it up, and here comes Meyer Maslow—kill the house lights, spotlight the guy—sitting in one of the leather chairs. Reading aloud from his book. Of course it goes on forever. Danny and Max keep watching. Hell, it’s TV. It’s on.

Time slips by. Finally, Mom comes in and says, “Not one person saw Vincent leave. He vanished into thin air.”

“Are you okay?” Danny said. “Because you look like roadkill, Mom.”

“Thanks,” Mom says. “That helps.”

“Sorry,” Danny says.

There’s a silence. Then Mom says, “What’s that noise?”

“I think it’s Max. Puking in the bathroom.”

“Is he sick?”

“Cooba Leebrays,” says Danny.

Even for Mom, she’s surprisingly slow.

“Have you guys been
drinking?
”

“I don’t know. Not really. Yes.”

“You let your little brother
drink?
In the middle of
this?
After what we’ve been through today? Is this how I can trust you? Oh, Danny, you guys are
not
coming through for me. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am.”

“You should appreciate us more,” said Danny. “You should see how bad other kids are…” He lets his voice trail off, ominously. “Me and Max mostly do what you want. We’re pretty nice to each other. And we’re pretty nice to you. Even though you might not think so. Okay, we drank a little rum. Big deal. This has been rough for us, too, Mom.”

Danny is leaving out a lot. It’s not the most brilliant speech. He’s pretty smashed, but somehow it works. Tears pop into Mom’s eyes, and she comes over and hugs him. Danny’s sorry he said anything, and then again he isn’t.

“I really love you,” Mom says.

“I love you, too,” says Danny.

Danny inhales and counts to five. Then he eases Mom off him.

After another hour or so of waiting for Vincent to show up, Chandler and his staff are all so exhausted and depressed that when Mom wonders aloud if maybe Vincent went home and fell asleep and isn’t answering the phone, everyone goes for it.

Max and Danny roll their eyes. Mom and her wishful thinking.

Amazingly, and to her credit, Mom realizes that the drive home is also not a great time for them to
talk, really talk,
as she threatened in the Green Room. For a while no one says a word. Danny and Max and Mom are so separate, so wrapped up in their own thoughts, it’s as if they hardly know each other, as if it’s an accident or a coincidence that they’re all in the same car.

Mom might as well be talking to herself when she says, “Supposedly, they’re editing out the gory stuff. They’ll have Chandler talking and Meyer reading from his book. Then they’ll fill out the hour with clips from earlier shows. They’ll make it into this whole hate-and-tolerance package. At least that’s what they were saying by the time we left—”

“You better hope so,” says Danny. “They could still have another meeting. And if they decide that Raymond’s bloody nose is going to boost their ratings, they’ll go with that. If it bleeds, it leads.”

“Strange,” says Mom.

“What is?” asks Max.

She says, “Your brother sounds just like Vincent.”

Which pleases Danny, though he knows that—given what’s just happened—it probably shouldn’t.

Suddenly, everyone’s talking at once, and somewhere in the middle of this jumbled group conversation, Danny finally tells his mother about Raymond parking in their driveway. It’s almost as if he’s explaining why Vincent
had
to hit Raymond. Of course, he should have known better, because it makes Mom so nervous that Danny’s afraid she’ll never let him walk home from school alone again.

“Fucking Raymond,” Danny says. Raymond ruined everything.

Maybe Mom
has
convinced herself that Vincent went home without them. Because when they get to the house, she hurries inside and yells Vincent’s name in the same ridiculous, panicky voice they hear when she’s looking for them.

The strangest thing of all is that Mom is right. Vincent
has
been here. In fact, he’s been here and gone.

Danny and Max and their mother crowd into the doorway of Vincent’s room. Vincent hasn’t rearranged much, but you can tell he’s vacated. Checked out. It’s as if a cyclone has been through, selectively taken Vincent’s stuff, and left the family junk untouched.

Danny says, “Is his duffel bag here?” Even though he’s sure it isn’t.

“Where would it be?” Mom asks.

“Under the bed,” says Danny.

“How do you know?” Mom asks. Danny doesn’t answer. He’s been in here a few times to check the place out when Mom and Vincent were at work. He’s proud of himself for never looking in Vincent’s bag even after he found out that Vincent was raiding his stash.

Still dizzy from the rum and Coke, Max nonetheless gets down on his hands and knees and crawls under the bed. “Just dust balls. I feel sick,” he says, and then lies there on his stomach.

Mom says, “I’m sure Vincent will come home soon. So let’s try and take it easy—”

Danny thinks, Why would he have taken all his stuff if he was planning to come home soon? He helps Max up off the floor. Then he rushes back to his room to check on his pot supply. Because if Vincent has taken his weed, that will mean that they were never really friends.

Of all the stuff that Raymond was raving about on TV, the fact (if it
was
a fact) that bothered Danny most was that Vincent had stolen Raymond’s meds. It was the one detail Vincent hadn’t bothered telling Danny. He’d mentioned the car and the money, but not the pills. If Vincent could steal drugs from his cousin, why wouldn’t he feel free to take them from some…kid whose mother works in his office? What an idiot Danny was for putting his stash back in the same spot where Vincent found it. Maybe it was a test, or maybe he was just lazy. If his grass is still there, it will be a sign: Danny was right to trust him.